I'll Leave You Be
by Masking What Remains
Summary: What happened to Monika after the game reset? A good ending version of my other story "How Can I". Spoilers for Act 4 of DDLC.


She wasn't aware of what had happened at first.

There were so many colors, all dancing around her. They were all bright, and they were just in front of her. She was so curious, she reached out to touch them.

She couldn't reach them, because a sudden second later, she felt a sharp and intense stab of pain, accompanied by a loud and painful noise, which sounded like someone scratching a chalkboard with their own nails over and over. Even the colors surrounding her had suddenly become much too bright, and were now blinding her. She wanted to cringe, cover her ears or her eyes, anything she could do to ease the sudden sensory assault. She soon found that couldn't move, which scared her more. She also found that she couldn't scream, much less say anything, leaving her unable to call out for help.

Monika didn't get it immediately. Suddenly, she did.

It hit her just as suddenly as everything else had. She remembered the Literature Club, and the new guy, and Sayori's death, and Yuri's death, and herself sitting across the new guy in the classroom, surrounded by what seemed to be space. She then remembered how she got here, and what she did. She remembered that this was a game. Her world wasn't real. It was made of code and numbers and programming. She had fallen in love with someone who wasn't any of those things.

From what she could tell, that person felt the same way towards her. It was also just all a game to them. Then again, that person is called the "player" for a reason. It really is all just a game to her, and most likely them. Her entire world, which only existed in the confines of what had been programmed.

But it wasn't that way for the others.

She remembered Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki. Her friends. She quickly changed that to her club mates, before stopping herself. She didn't have the right to call them anything, least of all her friends, she felt. Friends didn't hurt each other the way she had. She had caused the deaths of two of them in some way or another, and when she deleted the third one, she was still alive. Monika wondered if everything she was experiencing now was what Natsuki experienced too.

The thought of making amends crossed her mind. At first, she didn't know how. Then, it hit her. If her being in the game was what caused everything to happen…

Then her not being in the game would be best for everyone.

* * *

When the game had been restored, Monika could see what was happening, which was better than the mess of glitching colors she had been seeing earlier. She still felt the shocks of pain, but they weren't as bad as earlier. They didn't bother her as much as she watched the Literature Club now- Sayori had taken her place as the club president, with Yuri taking Sayori's former spot as vice president- all getting along and being happy. A pang of guilt hit Monika again. She had been right, it seems. Her not being in the game was best-

"**I wanted to thank you for spending so much time with us all.**"

Monika stopped. She wondered what "so much time with us all" had meant, considering how, by the way the game was structured, the main character would have only met Yuri and Natsuki today. So what did Sayori mean-

Oh no. Sayori was the club president. That meant she had Monika's original role. _She knew what Monika knew._

Monika panicked a bit, and she watched, ready to step in if Sayori was about to repeat her mistakes. But she listened to what Sayori said, and if she could cry, she would have when the new club president said: "**Only someone who truly cares about the Literature Club would go that far.**"

Sayori was right, Monika realized. Maybe her own emotions towards the player were misplaced. Maybe she was deleted not because the player didn't care about her, but because they cared about everyone else too. For them to have spent as much time with her as they did with her making one-sided conversation about only one topic and the rest of the time letting her simply look at them, it meant they must have cared about her too.

It also meant that Sayori cared about her too, despite what she had done to her. Since she was the only one who remembered Monika out of the remaining members, it would have to mean that Sayori considered her a friend if she was talking about "all of us" in the way she was. She wasn't just talking about Yuri and Natsuki, she was talking about the missing member too. Monika may have felt that she didn't deserve to call them her friends, but Sayori seemed to think the opposite.

Monika snapped out of her thoughts just in time to hear Sayori tell the player to "come visit sometime", and that they all love them. The world in front of her faded, and even though she no longer existed in the world of "Doki Doki Literature Club", she was still there. Sayori was able to say goodbye to the player for herself, Yuri, and Natsuki, but Monika decided she wanted to say her own goodbye.

Plus, she _did_ work hard on that song.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading! I'd like to send a shoutout to E1craZ4life for suggesting a version of this story based on the Good Ending. If you haven't yet, and want to see the original version of the story (the Normal/Bad ending), then check out "How Can I"! Reviews on how to improve and what you liked abut this story are always appreciated. Once again, thank you for reading!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own "Doki Doki Literature Club". That honor goes to TeamSalvato.


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